B.C.’s chief medical officer joins call to legalize pot; ‘It should be regulated’ -kpemberton@vancouversun.com

This is the way great moments in history begin.  This is the way great changes take place.  An awareness that something is wrong; that there is a need for immediate change.  That the status quo is unacceptable.

The corporate agenda does not include most of us except as fodder.  We are tired of being fed to that agenda.  We demand a better equity.

I recently bought a book titled ‘Vancouver Then and Now’.  As the title suggests, it’s a  look at Vancouver past and present; a juxtaposing of images from then and now.  I opened it to a double page frontispiece.  It’s a painting; an aerial view looking east over Stanley Park to Vancouver and the North Shore mountains beyond as it would have appeared in 1792 .  It depicts Captain George Vancouver’s ships anchored in English Bay.

                                     c Chuck Davis/Jim Mackenzie

The painting stopped me cold.  The whole of the landmass was covered in forest as far as the eye could see and the only sign of human activity was a few tiny clearings with just a hint of whispy smoke from longhouse fires at the extreme edge of this vast forest.

It was Vancouver barely touched by humans and although I had always been vaguely  aware that this was the way the city looked before Europeans,  I had never seen such an evocative presentation.  The full colour double page plate took my breath away.  And it took my mind away to a different time;  a different reality.  It woke me up.

Then, when I turned the page, I found another two-page full colour image;  a photograph of Vancouver now taken from the same angle as the painting from 1792.  I found myself flipping back and forth between the two depictions, letting my mind play with the wonder of  the striking differences between those two worlds.

c Chuck Davis/John McQuarrie

In these days of  downloads and e-readers I sincerely doubt that the cramped and colour-challenged e-reader screen would have left me so utterly  breathless.

So if the figures I’m seeing are correct the Conservative  Bill S-10 will cost between 10 and 13 billion dollars.  The F35 fighter jet will cost around 16 billion dollars. The grand total will be between 26 and 29 billion dollars.

In these trying economic times I would think that such a large sum of money might be useful in better ways than pissing it away on prisons and planes we do not need.

Give it some thought and then get out and vote.  Canada needs a vote of sanity!

Here’s The Next Installment of the Alphakids by Paul Fryer.  Click on the image to enlarge.

Best of the Season from Kestrel Books.  Here is the first installment of a humourous alphabet created by Paul Fryer.  Each letter stands for a classmate or teacher Paul remembers from his school days.  I’m sure you can find someone you know or knew  among this diverse group.

We’ll show more of these charming individuals in further posts.  Stay tuned!

.

What will the new world without cheap oil to manufacture cheap goods bring?  Well, it will most certainly bring much less of the material everything we have today.  This could  be perceived as a negative outcome if we were to evaluate the situation using the material yardsticks to which we are accustomed.  But what if we try an objective analysis of a world lacking material goods:

The missing cheap electronics will mean we might have to find ways of entertaining ourselves that do not require  electronic storage.  We might be tempted to attempt to learn how to play a musical instrument, or how to use the musical instrument of the human voice.

Without our cheap theater equipment we might become bored enough to venture out into the real world to discover what is there.

Without the gas to run automobiles we might have to walk from place to place using muscles and lungs that become healthier when used frequently.

Without cheap cameras and computers we might find a way to explore recording images manually in some way.  We might decide to try capturing images on canvas with paint or pencil.

In essence, we might find that the missing things in our lives bring about changes that enrich our lives.

Now here’s an interesting book by a man who was the chief economist at CIBC World Markets for twenty years.  Rubin talks about standing in the new terminal at Pearson International Airport and wondering what it could be used for once it becomes obsolete due to  $200-a-barrel-oil killing air travel.  If we think gasoline would be expensive, just imagine the price of jet fuel.  Rubin predicts not just the demise of air travel but the globalized economy as well.  Those myriad cheap goods from China won’t get here on ships fueled with $200 oil.  He suggests we might need to revisit our cheap-oil enabled lifestyle.  The changes he talks about would most certainly turn our comfy little material western world upside down.  This book is food for thought.  More later…

Welcome to the Kestrel Books Blog. We’ll be sharing with you our thoughts about the world of books and how they fit into, and enrich, our lives.  We’ll also be talking about our world in general and hope that through discussion and the sharing of ideas we can coax a more hopeful and positive way of life.